The use of personal communication devices has increased astronomically over the last two decades. The penetration of mobile devices (user equipment or UEs) in modern society has continued to drive demand for a wide variety of networked devices in a number of disparate environments. The use of networked UEs using 3GPP LTE systems has increased in all areas of home and work life. One concern with UEs is latency involved in handovers (or cell reselection) between different base stations (enhanced eNode-Bs or eNBs). Handovers may occur as a UE moves in a geographical location served by multiple eNBs and a determination is made to change the eNB providing communication services to the UE from the current eNB to another eNB. Due to the number of processes involved, the handover may take on the order of about 30-50 ms, which is a substantial amount of time. The handover latency may, in certain circumstances, result in a period of relatively poor quality service or even loss of service during the handover and may at present be excessive for 5G systems, for which handover latency is not to exceed about 1 ms.
It may thus be desirable for upcoming 5G, as well as 4G systems, to reduce handover latency and thus produce seamless mobility for UEs.